Cell-specific abnormalities of glutamate transporters in schizophrenia: sick astrocytes and compensating relay neurons?

ABSTRACT: Excitatory amino-acid transporters (EAATs) bind and transport glutamate, limiting spillover from synapses due to their dense perisynaptic expression primarily on astroglia. Converging evidence suggests that abnormalities in the astroglial glutamate transporter localization and function may underlie a disease mechanism with pathological glutamate spillover as well as alterations in the kinetics of perisynaptic glutamate buffering and uptake contributing to dysfunction of thalamo-cortical circuits in schizophrenia. We explored this hypothesis by performing cell- and region-level studies of EAAT1 and EAAT2 expression in the mediodorsal nucleus of the thalamus in an elderly cohort of subjects with schizophrenia. We found decreased protein expression for the typically astroglial-localized gluta

SUBMITTER: McCullumsmith RE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7584379 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature